


Explosion

by ceresilupin



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, i have lots of feelings about thancred and his tendency towards advoidant attachment styles, i've taken lots of liberties with the msq in the name of self-indulgence, j'vahn is a ninja and usually the steadiest member of the group, suvi and ryuuji stayed in the source, talia and j'vahn traveled to the first, talia is an awkward penguin, the scions are a family, there is more than one warrior of light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceresilupin/pseuds/ceresilupin
Summary: Recounting some of the events from the end of the Qitana Ravel dungeon. It seemed to me like the WoL's condition is an excellent excuse for hurt/comfort, so I ramped up some of the symptoms and blew some stuff up.
Relationships: Warrior of Light/Thancred Waters
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Explosion

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is for some mild violence and injury, on level with the stuff you encounter in the game. This is based loosely on the events from the Qitana Ravel but is not a strict retelling, jsyk.

Eros has three heads and one and three-quarters bodies, and it fights like it’s dying, like it’s burning to death, the frantic madness of pain emerging in a desperate desire to kill. It spits poison that is both revolting and deadly, and its jaws -- when they aren’t open in a skull-splitting roar -- clamp with enough pressure to pierce armor and break bone.

In a battle like this, with one strong enemy instead of dozens of weaker ones, Talia has little in the way of offensive capabilities. Instead, she throws herself into her healing. She feels like she is swimming in crisp, green-scented white light; sometimes she pulls her thoughts into complex patterns, condensing layers of aether into new flesh and bone, willing it into reality. The rest of the time, she is like the conductor of an orchestra, pulling from the Lifestream to strengthen reality. Her awareness is absorbed in the music, adjusting and tweaking to keep it in tune; she is only half-aware of herself or the others.

And speaking of the others…. She can just barely tell them apart. J’vahn is at the front with Thancred, knives flashing; Minfilia scampers around the edges of the battle, small and fast. Alphinaud and Alisaie are in the middle, Alisaie dancing around her far more stationary brother, his carbuncle using her head as a stepping stool for its impressive leaps (to her visible annoyance). Urianger moves slowly but steadily about the battlefield, conducting his own symphony in tune with the stars. And at the very edges of the clearing is Y’shtola, glinting in and out of her vision as she reaches into the dark for fire and ice.

It’s getting hard to concentrate. She is hemorrhaging aether, losing nearly half of every spell to the air as she labors sluggishly to press into flesh. The tracery of Thancred’s blood, the gleam of his nervous system, even the dense fog of his bones are burned into her mind’s eye, making it hard to see when and where he really needs help. It’s like trying to peer through a snowstorm, and the constant buffeting wind shows no signs of stopping.

He lurches forward -- not one of his enhanced leaps, but the stumble of someone who’s encountered a sudden lack of resistance. Talia stretches her senses to keep up with him, terrified that if she looks away the next blow will be his last--

Thancred jams the point of his gunblade into the ground and uses it to stay upright, enveloped in a strange white blankness. Talia realizes her eyes are closed and opens them to the sight of Thancred’s silhouette, outlined by the expanding illumination of the Lightwarden.

“Get down!” Alisaie cries, echoed by Urianger’s far more carrying voice: “Away! Away from the Warden!”

Thancred tries to walk, and fails. J’vahn grabs Minfilia and ninjas away; Alisaie does the same for Alphinaud. Talia flings her hand out, imagining her aether as a shield, a pair of enfolding wings, a strong clean wind, and pulls with all of her remaining strength.

Thancred crashes into her just before the explosion hits.

~

Alisaie is spinning on her heel, shaking off the effects from her lunge and preparing for another, when the ball of white light detonates. She sees it eclipse Tally and Thancred, hears herself yelling--

And then is smashed to the ground by -- surprise, surprise -- the bony weight of her twin brother. “Stay down!” he shouts, ilms from her left ear.

But Tally--

The words don’t make it out. Sharp stinging ozone hammers them, hot dry heat blasts them, and then the light swallows everything. Even through her eyelids, the intensity of the light makes her head throb. Alphinaud, half holding onto her so he isn’t blown away, half holding her back so she doesn’t do anything reckless, yells wordlessly.

Cool darkness blows over her like a breeze, and despite the chaos, Alisaie recognizes her twin’s aether. She pushes a Vercure his way with a mental snap: Quit worrying about me and take care of yourself!

He can’t hear the words, obviously, but something of the intent must transmit itself. In retort, he pushes her face to the ground, throwing an arm around her head to shield her eyes from the light.

And then the explosion is over. There’s the usual moment of stunned reeling, as eyes adjust and ears adapt. Alisaie manages to stand, leaning on Alphinaud for support and then hauling him upright in her wake.

“What are you--” he starts.

“Tally!” Alisaie pushes forward, blinking the spots out of her vision. “Thancred!”

Alphinaud swears and then starts coughing, ending with a wheezing hack and a dry heave. Alisaie turns back, helping him sit--

“Go,” he rasps, pressing a glowing hand to his chest.

Alisaie uses the dregs of her strength to push out another Vercure, and then releases her twin (he’s not bleeding, he’ll be fine) to hurry forward. There are pieces of rubble and uprooted trees everywhere, but her eyes skim over them, straining for a glimpse of white.

“Here!” She hears J’vahn before she sees him and stumbles blindly to voice. He’s on his knees beside a wrenched and shattered piece of wood, heaving it up as Minfilia attempts to wriggle beneath. “Alisaie, a hand--”

Alisaie stumbles to his side, grips the splintery wood, and pushes with all of her strength. Her knees pop and her back screams, but together she and Vahn get it lifted. Minfilia, grunting with effort, is able to drag Thancred free and pauses for a moment, panting--

The ruined tree begins to splinter! Alisaie tries to shout a warning, but her muscles are as frozen as the unending moment stretches on and on and -- wait. No, the moment isn’t unending. The tree just isn’t falling anymore.

“Quickly, if you might!” Y’shtola snaps. “I cannot hold it forever, and I will need all of my strength for healing.”

J’vahn hurries forward, helping Minfilia drag Tally into the open air. Urianger is also there, pulling Thancred further to safety; when she turns, Alisaie sees her brother half-supported by Y’shtola, one hand flung out to help in the lifting.

When the others are free, Alisaie releases her grip and rolls hastily to the side as the ruined tree comes crashing down. She comes to a halt on her back and can’t move for a moment, trying to blink the last sparkles from her vision.

No, wait again. Those aren’t sparkles, they’re stars. The night sky has returned.

Y’shtola sets Alphinaud beside her and hurries off. “We did it?” she asks him.

His lips are speckled with blood and his voice naught but a wheeze, but he is grimly victorious. “We did it,” he confirms.

~

Thancred wakes to the familiar feeling of light calling him back. Once it was Minfilia -- then still Ascilia -- practicing her burgeoning healing skills when she found him unconscious in an alleyway (no matter how he insisted that he’d been attacked, he suspected she knew that he’d been drunk). For a long time it’s been Talia, fluttering after him like a nervous bird, begging him to slow down and be careful even as she confronted dangers the world had never seen. Lately, it’s been Minfilia again, but a different Minfilia, sore and battered in different ways but as bright as ever. Maybe brighter.

This time, it’s Y’shtola. Being dragged back to consciousness by Y’shtola is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. Eorzean conjurers were kind to their patients as a matter of philosophy, but Sharlayan healers generally believed that pain was the best remedy for stupidity. It was an opinion Y’shtola had expressed more than once.

“Ow,” he says, as soon as he has control of his lungs and mouth. A vice-like grip on his chin forces him to meet milky eyes.

“He’s alive,” Y’shtola says briskly. “And as reckless as ever.”

Thancred hurts. Everywhere. Everything hurts, from the top of his head to his broken right foot. The pain is relentless and inescapable, and so he doesn’t bother trying to escape it. He leans into it instead, counts his breaths and waits for his body to adjust. Like everything else, it too would pass. Whether he wanted it to or not.

Urianger’s cool, dry, hand comes to rest on his forehead. “Arise, my friend,” he says, in his usual portentous way. More welcome is the soothing ebb of his healing magic. “Death hast not yet come for thee.”

Thancred grunts. “You sure about that?” Y’shtola helps him sit, watching him with narrowed eyes. “‘Cause if it’s willing to swing back around, I’d be happy to let it take me.”

He hears a wet, muffled snort of laughter and turns to find Minfilia at his side. With his gaze on her, her eyes go even wider, mouth even smaller. She’s been crying.

Thancred rests a hand that feels like a bag of crushed bricks on her head. “Hey,” he says, trying to smile. “Not worried about me, were you?”

Minfilia takes his hand in her tiny ones and doesn’t respond. The warm glow of her aether seeps into him, taking the edge off some of the pain. She doesn’t have Tally or Y’shtola’s skills as a healer -- his Minfilia hadn’t either -- but she’s always determined to help in whatever small ways she can.

Thancred lets her finish, already glancing around. “Where’s Tally?”

~

Tally is … not well.

Alisaie has one arm crossed over her stomach, her fingers tapping her lips as she hovers over Tally’s unconscious form. “She’s absorbed too much light-aspected aether.”

“It’s as we suspected.” Y’shtola goes to check on Alphinaud, sitting at his sister’s feet and looking more drawn and tired than usual. “It’s … transforming her. As it has others.”

Into a Sin Eater, she doesn’t say. She doesn’t need to.

Y’shtola goes to J’vahn’s side, hand extended in the air over Tally. Her eyes close and her shoulders slump as she extends her senses in concentration, her breath falling into rhythm with Vahn and Urianger.

Minfilia sits beside Thancred with her legs tucked neatly beneath her. “J’vahn asked me if I could help her,” she admits softly. “If I knew a way to … Minfilia would have. The real Minfilia, I mean.” Thancred swallows around the familiar rush of shame and rage, and can’t bring himself to look at the girl lest she think it was aimed at her. “J’vahn thought of the in-between place where they -- you -- spoke to her before she came here. He thought maybe he could use his crystal to reach her, but … I don’t know if it’s working.”

“Hydaelyn,” he says. He knows he’s grasping at straws, but -- “Can Hydaelyn help her? Tally, I mean.”

Alisaie gestures to the ruined battlefield around them. “Hydaelyn doesn’t seem interested in helping anyone here.”

Thancred grimaces, but can’t argue with that. He turns his gaze back to Tally, noticing again the unearthly paleness of her skin. It isn’t just pale -- it’s opaque, as if Tally is a sculpture of plaster or marble. There are no hints of veins beneath the surface, and even her lips have lost most of their color. She’s been feeling poorly since the fight with Titania, but this … this is something else entirely.

Before the fight, she and J’vahn had decided that J’vahn would absorb the Lightwarden’s aether this time. It was easier for Tally to do so; she was familiar with the manipulation of aether, and had turned her body into a living channel for the stuff. But the headaches and light sensitivity she’d been experiencing suggested that there would be negative repercussions if she carried on, and so J’vahn had insisted that he be given a chance.

Only he hadn’t gotten it. Thancred closes his eyes and thinks back to the chaos of battle; the poison in his veins stiffening his arms and legs, the expanding light that made his head throb. Something must have pulled him away from the Warden before it detonated, or it would have taken him with it. And something must have interfered with J’vahn’s attempt to absorb its aether.

Such as a more conveniently shaped vessel laying closer nearby, one that wasn’t able to escape in time because it was busy saving a certain useless someone’s life? Thancred grimaces. “This is--” he starts, and then remembers he’s currently surrounded by kids. This is my fault, he doesn’t finish.

“There has to be something we can do,” Alisaie finally explodes. Thancred glances away lest she see the pity in his face. She would probably punch him.

Y’shtola’s hand falls, and her mercilessly penetrating gaze is turned on to Thancred. “There may be something.”

~

The others insist on explanations, but Thancred doesn’t bother waiting. He begins preparing even as Y’shtola and Urianger switch into lecture mode, attempting to explain what they saw and how the old Ronkan temple was supposed to work.

WIth J’vahn’s help, Thancred stands and wraps his mostly-healed foot. His other injuries, comparatively minor, are fading slowly under the combined healing forces of Y’shtola, Urianger, Alphinaud, and Minfilia. As the twins begin arguing with Y’shtola, J’vahn wraps Tally in his coat and lifts her easily, settling her into Thancred’s arms. He can imagine how she would blush and squeak if she was awake to be carried like this, and almost smiles. Almost. Her feverish weight and the cold whiteness of her face are enough to wipe out any amusement he might be feeling.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Alisaie demands, arms crossed, “but doesn’t this plan risk Thancred’s life as much as Tally’s?” She pauses for a careful breath. “What if she … transforms? Thancred will be trapped down there with her!”

Urianger’s mouth tightens, gaze lowering as he lays one last healing spell on Thancred. Y’shtola clasps her hands loosely in front of her black gown. “Every plan incorporates some element of risk,” she says coolly. “You should know that by now.”

Alisaie bristles, preparing to shout.

Y’shtola crosses her arms, somehow managing to cut her off with naught but a gesture. “We haven’t the time for uncertainty, or sentiment, or further discussion,” she says coldly. “We must move quickly if we hope to save our friend. Or would you prefer that we stand back at the let the Warriors of Light pay the price for our safety, as usual?”

Alisae’s breath catches, in hurt or rage, and J’vahn looks like he’s about to let him temper fly. Urianger’s sigh draws their ire away from each other. “Ever more doest thou come to resemble thy teacher, Master Matoya,” he says gently. “Hast thee no kinder words for our young friends?”

Y’shtola turns aside, hiding her face from the others. Thancred rests his free hand on Minfilia’s shoulder for a moment, pressing her frail form against his flank. Then he lets her go -- he’s always known that he’s going to have to let her go -- and steps forward. 

“Y’shtola is right,” he cuts in, before Urianger’s observation can turn into a fresh argument, or worse yet, cause the tears in Y’shtola’s blind eyes spill over. “We don’t have time for this. Y’shtola, I need you to tell me where this Chamber of Quietude is.”

“Surely they don’t have to go alone,” Alphinaud interjects. It’s uncomfortably close to begging. “My aether is almost drained, that should be close enough. Let me help!”

“He has a point.” J’vahn is plainly still irritated with Y’shtola, but his voice is grimly calm. “It’s a risk, but if the room functions as you say then Alphinaud should be able to stay nearby--”

Y’shtola faces forward again, her expression as still as carven stone. “No,” she says briskly. “Thancred, with me. The rest of you, stay here.”

~

The Chamber of Quietude is deep beneath the rest of the Qitana Ravel. They retrace their steps from earlier, past the still-smoking corpse of the Batsquatch and the red-hot metal remains of the Lozatl. Thancred takes it one step at a time; he picks out a pillar or crumbled statue in the distance and focuses all of his intent on reaching it, counting his steps and breathing through the pain. Once there, he picks the next one. And the next. And the next.

Eventually they turn from the path to venture deeper into the temple. Y’shtola frowns at the walls, tracing the carvings and muttering to herself. Every so often, he hears something mechanical in the walls and another doorway opens up, beckoning them further and deeper. Fitting himself and his burden through the narrow doors isn’t easy, but he manages to avoid giving Tally any new concussions to worry about.

To his mild surprise, he can tell when they’re close to the chamber.

Since emerging from the Lifestream, he has found that all aether currents make noise. Out in the world, surrounded by living beings and invisible rivers of energy, they all blend together into a high-pitched hum that he usually only notices when trying to sleep.

But as they approach the Chamber of Quietude, they begin to fall away, and as he crosses the threshold, it’s quiet for the first time in years. He can hear Tally’s aether, recognizes it intuitively, and there is a muffled heartbeat sound that might be his own severed connection.

He looks back at Y’shtola, on the other side of the doorway. “Be careful,” she says. She hesitates. “Try to make it out if -- if the worst happens.”

Thancred dips his chin in a nod. “Tell Minfilia--” he starts, and then can think of nothing adequate. Y’shtola watches him struggle and utters not a word.

Finally, Thancred gives up. With one last glance backwards, he makes his way down into the darkness.

~

The Chamber is huge and pitch dark when Y’shtola seals the door, taking the light with her. The room itself is warmer than the hallways they’d trekked through together, warm and slightly humid; it’s hard to tell where his skin ends and the air begins. Y’shtola had warned him that it would be like this, but he still finds himself wavering, squeezing his useless eyes shut for a long moment.

Tally, he reminds himself. Focus.

He descends a short slope carefully, struggling to keep his balance without visual references, and then locates a spiral carving on the floor by touch. As per Y’shtola’s instructions, he follows it to the precise center of the room. Water has gathered here, warm as blood and tasting metallic on his lips.

Carefully, groaning a bit with the effort, Thancred sets Tally down into the shallow pool. It’s just deep enough that she is mostly submerged, but as Y’shtola had promised, her mouth and nose are above the water. He locates the sigil for balance, and makes sure Tally’s head rests directly upon it.

And then there is nothing to do but wait.

Thancred sits, aching legs extended, on the floor beside the pool. He’s careful not to position himself on any of the carvings, but he can still feel something waking up in the floor. Y’shtola had described it like the tides, but the soft trickle and gurgle reminds him of a creekbed instead. Something full of rocks and mud and water, with tree roots poking through. He closes his eyes -- not that it really makes a difference, dark as it is -- and rubs his face.

What will he do if this doesn’t work? He can only think of two options; abandon Tally to her transformation and warn the others, or stay and attempt to slay her before it finishes. Both are unthinkable. Just the thought of fighting Tally, the quietest and gentlest of the Warriors of Light, their sweet, fretful friend who still blames herself for Minfilia’s loss --

If he doesn’t want to fight her, he should leave. They can always come back and find Tally later if she survives, but if she transforms they might not get the chance to escape. But Gods, he can’t leave her here in the dark. What if she were to regain consciousness -- what if, in her last few minutes of pain and confusion, she thought that she had been abandoned--

He presses his fingers hard against his closed eyes. No. No, that isn’t going to happen. It can’t. He’s lost so much, these last few years -- Louisoix and Yda, Minfilia and Papalymo, he can’t -- he can’t lose any more. Surely he won’t be required to lose any more. But even as he struggles to convince himself, he feels an ugly laugh catching in his throat. Even if they escape from this place, what awaits him but more loss? One way or another, he will lose Minfilia again before this war is over. Which is worse -- the loss of the friend who taught him how to hope, and care, and fight for the world -- or the loss of the big-eyed girl who held his hand as they fled Eulmore, who sleeps trustingly at night because he is there to protect her….

Thancred gasps, jolting awake from a light doze. He blinks, and then pauses to rub away the spots dancing in his vision. This darkness is unending. How long will they be down here?

Until it’s over, he supposes. One way or another.

He reaches out carefully for Tally, and realizes two things. One, the water is spilling from the shallow pool, tricking along the grooves of the spiral carved onto the floor. And two, the spots in his vision weren’t spots -- they were lights. Lights coming from Tally, from the scratches on her face and knicks on her hands.

Her blood is glowing.

Thancred bites back a groan -- that can’t be a good sign -- and shuffles around to get a better view. Yes, it’s definitely her blood that’s glowing, and even as he watches the gentle phosphorescence spreads to the water. Dim at first, but increasingly bright, or perhaps his eyes are adapting--

Tally’s eyes snap open.

Thancred reacts, darting forward to grab her and keep her in the pool as she wakes in a panic. “Tally!” he shouts, or tries to, as her fists bounce off his face and shoulder. “Tally it’s me -- calm down--”

A wordless, winded sound leaves her lungs as he grips her wrists, using his bodyweight to pin her. He’s half in the pool with her, at this point -- he hopes that won’t interfere with the room’s magic--

“Tally!” he shouts again, directly into her face, and Gods, her eyes are glowing pale gold and he can feel the bones in her wrists bending -- he has to let go soon or he’ll hurt her -- or is that better than letting her leave the pool?

And then she stops. “Thancred?” she gasps.

“It’s me,” he babbles, uselessly and stupidly, “it’s me, it’s me, you’re safe. You have to stay in the water.”

“Thancred?” she asks again, as if she hadn’t heard him.

“It’s me,” he assures her, abandoning the other explanations for now. “It’s me. I’m here.” She isn’t fighting anymore; he lets her go and shifts to sit at her side. In the darkness, his hands are drawn irresistibly to her face, to cup her cheeks and observe the silhouettes of his fingers against the unnatural glow of her skin.

“I’m right here,” he promises again.

“Thancred,” she says, relaxing in sudden understanding, and then she starts to cry.

~

Y’shtola returns to the group sans Thancred and Tally. Alisaie is waiting for her on the edge of the platform, ready to continue their quarrel from earlier, but the hollow look in the woman’s eyes stops her cold. She doesn’t know Y’shtola as well as Urianger -- neither of them are the sort to invite closeness -- but she recognizes despair when she sees it.

Alisaie swallows her angry words (it takes an effort) and modulates her voice instead. “You found the Chamber, then?”

Y’shtola nods. “Yes. Thancred and Talia are inside. Now we must activate the crystals on the roof.” She turns to peer in their direction with unnerving precision; Alisaie herself can barely pick them out against the temple’s stonework and carvings. “Fortunately, we need not handle the crystals directly. Urianger?”

Her voice is strangely muted, but still carries a note of command. Urianger steps forward, gesturing for Alisaie, J’vahn, and Minfilia to do the same. Alphinaud, his aether still drained after healing his own broken ribs and punctured lung, sits aside and watches unhappily.

It’s been a long time since Alisaie needed someone to guide her aether, but this is no time for pridefulness or ego. One by one, Y’shtola gathers the threads of their awareness and begins guiding them along, weaving a tangled tapestry like a woman at a loom. The crystals act as anchors, and by the time she is finished the entire temple is wrapped in delicate lines of aether.

Without a sound, the crystals seem to bloom like flowers, and Y’shtola’s grip on her aether fades away.

Alisaie sighs, letting her hand fall. Minfilia, on her left, is rubbing her forehead and looking queasy, probably from over-exertion. Alisaie silently guides her to sit next to Alphinaud.

“There is naught to do but wait, my friend,” Urianger says to J’vahn.

Tally’s fellow Warrior of Light and Darkness crosses his arms, staring up at the distant crystals. “So I gathered,” he says calmly. When Urianger hesitates, Vahn nods and tilts his head towards Alisaie and the others. With a sigh, Urianger comes to sit beside them, brushing his fingers over their foreheads with a light, soothing rush of magic. Minfilia and Alphinaud sigh in relief.

Alisaie watches covertly as Y’shtola approaches J’vahn. The two miqo’te regard one another warily, ears and tails twitching in a language only they understand, and then J’vahn ducks his head and Y’shtola makes some small comment. They relax, J’vahn’s smile turning rueful, and Y’shtola ducks her head as she makes one final remark. An apology?

Together, they join the other Scions in a weary line along the roof’s edge, staring out over the forest and the darkening sky. Urianger extends a gentlemanly hand, helping Y’shtola to sit at his side.

In the end, Y’shtola is the first to speak, but it’s not about any of the things Alisaie had expected it to be about.

“Would you describe it to me, Urianger?” She smiles sadly, tipping her face up towards the sky. “Paint for me a picture with your words.”

Urianger hesitates for a long moment, seeming to gather his scattered thoughts. Alisaie watches him fondly.

“A sea of shimmering stars,” he finally says, in his steady narrator’s voice. Alisaie heard it dozens of times as a child, pestering him to stop studying and read to her; it sends a familiar shiver down her spine. “Diamonds strewn across a raven gown, boundless and beautiful.” He pauses. “‘Tis an exquisite sight, not unlike that of the Source. Calm and gentle, and … forgiving....” His brow furrows in a brief flash of wistfulness, or pain.

Y’shtola, head slightly tilted, is still looking up at the sky with her blind eyes. Alisaie can’t help but think about Feo Ul’s words when she accepted the crown that, by right, should have been J’vahn’s. To strive for a dream you will never see….

“I can see it,” Y’shtola murmurs, even though she plainly can’t. But she can imagine it, and that seems to be enough.

The tension in Urianger’s face fades as he smiles down at his friend. “For however deep the void, or wide the expanse, there is no shore so distant as to be beyond the reach of light.” His lip quirks ruefully. “Ominous though that may sound, given our present travails.”

Y’shtola smiles as well, though it quickly fades. To Urianger’s obvious surprise, she tips her head to the side to rest against his arm, seeming to shut out the world. With her eyes closed, Alisaie can see every line of tension and dread usually kept carefully hidden.

Finally, Minfilia’s hushed voice breaks the quiet. “What do we do now?”

Y’shtola doesn’t reply. When the silence stretches out too long, it is Alphinaud who speaks, his chin firm and defiant. “We wait,” he says. “For however long it takes.”

~

It turns out that she can’t see. Perhaps she was injured in the fight, or the aether is damaging her eyes or brain, or she’s beginning to transform into a Warden, or -- hells, it could be practically anything. And she’s in pain, more pain than he’s ever seen her in.

Thancred hovers nearby, his own lingering aches nearly forgotten. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she wheezes. She’s clutching her head, squeezing her skull hard enough to make her hands shake. “It’s my head. Hurts.”

Thancred cradles her head carefully, searching for bumps by touch and the dim illumination provided by Tally herself. There are a few scrapes, but nothing else that he can detect. “A concussion--” he starts.

“Not that.” Tally is laboring for breath, her eyes watering (her tears glow, too). “Aether. It’s the aether. It’s--” She stops, digging her nails into her skull and whimpering.

Thancred rests his hands atop hers. “Breathe,” he says, helpless to do anything else. Gods, this has to be one of the worst feelings he’s ever experienced, the endless, protracted helplessness. “Breathe and try to stay calm.”

The pain seems to ebb temporarily, and Tally relaxes a bit, her breath slowing. “It’s the aether,” she tried again. “There’s too much. It’s--” Her words end in a bitten off cry as she jolts and she clutches her head again, scratching at her skin.

“That’s why we’re here,” Thancred fumbles to explain. He grabs her hands before she can draw blood. “This room, it’s a ritual room, the Chamber of Quietude. Monks used to come here to meditate and balance their energies. If they had too much of an element--”

Tally’s hand falls, splashing in the water. “It goes into the water.”

“Yes.” The water is glowing steadily now -- not just with Tally’s blood, she hasn’t lost nearly that much, but from something else. Dare he hope that it’s working? The water is still trickling along the spiral grooves, spreading out to leave dark lines on the dusty floor. There’s so much water that Thancred checks to see if there is a spring at the bottom of the pool, but it’s made of carefully fitted stones. Where is this water coming from?

Thancred pushes his questions aside. “Yes,” he says again. “Let the light-aspected ether into the water, and the water will take it away.”

Tally laughs a bit madly, and then shivers, and then starts to weep again. She’s completely silent this time, but Thancred can tell by how she squeezes her eyes shut and presses her head that she’s still in terrible pain.

“It will be alright.” Remarkable, how calm he sounds just then, given that he doesn’t feel calm at all. “It will all be alright. Just stay here with me.”

Thancred’s coat and armor are half-drenched, and Tally splashed water everywhere in her earlier panic, but the room still seems to be functioning. How far dare he push it? The hells with it, he decides, and crawls into the pool beside her, gathering her up in his arms. It’s something he’s longed to do dozens of times before -- not just for Tally, but for Minfilia, for both Minfilias, for Lyse when she was grieving, even for Urianger after Moenbryda was killed -- but something has always stopped him. Some reluctance or unwillingness, something diamond hardness that looks strong but shatters when struck.

But if Tally, Warrior of Light and Darkness, is going to die here, it isn’t going to be while he huddles nearby and watches. Thancred gathers her up and she presses into his embrace blindly, shaking and digging her nails into his armor. He can hear her grinding her teeth.

“It will be alright,” he soothes, stroking her wet, tangled hair, gripping the nape of her neck, anything that might help. “It will be alright.”

“Hurts,” she whimpers.

Thancred winces, softening his touch and preparing to draw back. “Do you--”

She shakes her head wildly. “Don’t go!”

She sounds exactly like their young Minfilia. He immediately pulls her closer. “All right,” he says calmly. “I won’t.”

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she babbles, teeth chattering. He hasn’t heard her sound so lost and confused since her fight with Zenos. “My head hurts. So much. I can’t--” She pounds her fists weakly against his armored shoulders, and then goes back to gripping her head. “Thancred, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t--”

“You can,” he says, pushing back her hair and bending to stare into her face. “You can.”

She shakes her eyes, glowing tears dripping.

“You can,” he says again, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t believe it. “It will be alright. Just a little while longer.” He presses his dry lips to her forehead, operating on some instinct he barely understands. “I’m right here with you.”

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, his armor creaking quietly. Thancred rests his cheek against her wet hair and closes his eyes to the growing light.

****

It’s the last thing she had expected, but somehow, Talia opens her eyes. She is laying in a puddle of water in a shallow stone pool, with something like salt rings running along the sides. It wasn’t actually salt, of course, because it was glowing, and salt usually didn’t do that.

As the view slowly swam into focus, Talia decided they were crystals. Tiny, tiny crystals. But how had they gotten here? And where was here, exactly? It felt like a dungeon of some sort, but if so, then who had put a pillow beneath her head? Awfully considerate for someone who owned a dungeon….

Talia feels around as she slowly sits up, and realizes a few things all at once. First, her pillow isn’t a pillow, it’s a shoulder -- Thancred’s shoulder, specifically. And the room isn’t a dungeon -- it looks like the funeral room she saw in Slitherbough, the same rough stone and shadows, but there are carvings stretching from the floor to the ceiling in swirling spirals. Every groove sprouted more of the glowing, salt-like crystals she’d noticed before.

But more captivating than the room, or the crystals, or the mystery of how they’d gotten there, is Thancred. He still has one arm half around her, his face mashed against the uneven stone. And most importantly, he looks dead.

“Thancred!” Her left hand is asleep and her body is numb from the stone floor, but she manages to half-lean, half-fall forward to check Thancred’s pulse. Only she doesn’t get the chance -- before her glowing hand can touch his chest, his eyes snap open and his hand locks around her wrist.

They both jump, startled by the other, and then Thancred quickly lets her go. “Tally!” he says, at the same time that she says his name again. He sits up and grabs her shoulders roughly. “You’re alive!”

Talia lays her hands over his, checking his pulse and searching for injuries with her aether. “I thought you were dead!” she chides him.

Thancred brushes that aside and, to her astonishment, pulls her forward into a hug. Talia returns it automatically, noticing absently that Thancred has shed his armor at some point, and that someone -- probably Urianger -- has already healed most of his injuries. And then she can pay attention to nothing but the weight of his arms around her, and how his cheek presses to hers as he squeezes hard.

Talia isn’t sure what’s going on, but she squeezes him back. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. Not that Thancred is a horse, of course….

For a moment, they stay pressed together. Talia realizes her eyes are drifting shut and forces them open, pulling back slowly. Thancred lets her go, but keeps his hand on her shoulder, regarding her intently.

With a few inches between them, Talia is reminded that he looks terrible. Bruises and dried blood remain from earlier injuries, but it’s the hollow look in his eyes that makes her heart ache.

“What happened?” Talia glances around the dimly lit room. “And where are we?”

“Beneath the temple, actually.” Thancred pauses to cough, his voice dry and raspy. Talia searches for a waterskin, but the one she keeps at her waist is gone and there are none nearby. Talia glances at the puddle that they’re still sitting in, considering, and then winces.

“You … probably shouldn’t drink that,” she decides. A small spell soothes the irritation in his throat, although she can do nothing about his dehydration.

“Yeah,” he agrees roughly. He squeezes her shoulder. “I’m not sure where that water came from.”

“There must be a spring or something.” Talia twists to her feet, and then extends a hand Thancred’s way.

But instead of grabbing it, Thancred sits on the ground and smiles at her for a moment. A bit of nervous tension that Talia hadn’t even noticed eases from her shoulders and spine; he looks like he’s been dragged through half of the seven hells, but the joy in his face is unmistakable. Before she can ask, he takes her hand and she finally gets to haul him to his feet.

“You seem to be all better,” he observes. He stumbles a bit -- his legs are probably asleep -- and accepts her assistance equably.

“You seem to be worse off than before,” Talia shoots back. She follows the glowing lines to what looks like a doorway, and searches for a way to open it. “What are we even doing down here, anyway? What happened to the Lightwarden?”

Thancred twists a handle that she’d overlooked -- oops -- and the door begins groaning open slowly. He doesn’t answer her question, frowning at the ground instead. In the silence, Talia finds that she does have some memories of the fight’s ending. She remembers healing Thancred’s battered body, and the Lightwarden falling, and the explosion--

Talia touches her chest, where the blessing of Hydalean seems to reside. “Oh.”

Thancred regards her anxiously. “Still all right?”

“Yes, of course,” she says absently, “I’m fine now.” She glances around the chamber one last time, and then touches the ‘salt’ on the wall nearby. Her white robes are caked in the stuff, she notices. Had the water been high enough to reach the ceiling, as the crystals indicated it had? How had it all evaporated without a light source? And how had they not drowned?

She scrapes her nail over the line of the crystal, chipping it away. For a moment, all of the crystal dust -- the stuff on her clothes, the walls, the floor, even the ceiling -- glows bright and golden. And then it goes out.

She holds a bit tighter to Thancred in the sudden darkness. “I must have broken the circuit,” she murmurs. With a wiggle of her fingers, she summons a soft green light to her palm. Thancred is still watching her, she finds, brow still furrowed in an unusually frank expression of concern.

With the arm under his shoulders, Talia gives him a quick squeeze. “I really am all right, Thancred.” He looks unconvinced, so she smiles. “I think I feel better than you do, actually.”

Thancred snorts. “That’s … not exactly an impressive accomplishment, at the moment.” He coughs weakly as the door comes to a halt and then can finally make their way out.

Talia casts one glance back at the dark chamber and wonders what, exactly, happened in there when she was unconscious. But before she can get distracted, Thancred gives her a tug, drawing her into the twilight dawn waiting outside. Everything else, she supposes, can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in FOREVER I am so NERVOUS come say hi to me on Tumblr (I'm berrydoodleoo and I'm new here).


End file.
